The Sun Also Rises
by Dorku No Renkinjutsushi
Summary: And though the sun may set,I still remember,Those words you often spoke,‘Every day,The sun also rises.’ ...Zackcentric. Spoilers through Ssn 2. Slash hints. Angst like woah.


_**[ficThe Sun Also Rises**_  
**Title:** The Sun Also Rises  
**Author:** **creepycrawly**  
**Fandom/Pairing:** Bones; Zack/OMC  
**Warnings:** Um. Iraq. Possibly spoilers for Season 2. Gheyness. Violence. (Well, okay, _duuuuuuuh._ Check the fandom. rolls eyes)  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own Zack Addy or anyone else on Bones. I own Season 1, and have pre-ordered Season 2. I also own more Kathy Reichs books than my public library. But, yeah. Not mine. angst  
**Summary:**

* * *

_They told me that you slept;  
That Death was but a silent friend.  
I waited like the Greyfriar's dog,  
But you never woke._

When they told Zack to go to Iraq (because they didn't ask, they just _told_), he was scared. He'd always been a homeboy, a down-to-earth, face-in-a-book, sit-in-the-lab kinda guy. He didn't get out much. For one, the Asperger's made interacting with most people kind of difficult—difficult to the point where an already-shy Zack just avoided most people as much as possible. For another, he was comfortable in the environment of the lab. Bones and rotting flesh and bite marks and knife marks were much simpler, much easier. Human interaction was hard.

And war was hard, too. War scared him, more than he would admit. He was a born and bred dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, liberal through and through. He didn't believe in guns, didn't believe in shooting, didn't believe in killing. War was not the place for someone like Zack.

But he really wasn't given any choice. Oh, sure, they _said_ he had one, but Zack knew how it worked. He had no choice about going. He would be going to Iraq whether he wanted to or not.

So he said yes.

Looking back, it was a stupid decision. Surely if he'd fought hard enough, they could have found someone else. Surely if he'd argued long enough, they'd have found a Plan B. Surely there was something he could have done.

Not that he thought this was entirely his fault. Honestly, he took every precaution he could. He was quiet and well-behaved. He was respectful. He was polite. He was so far away from normal and human that it took a young Marine with an autistic sister to connect to him and draw him out of his terrified shell.

"Hey, kid," David (because that had been his name) had said, a gentle smile on his face. "What end of the Spectrum are you?"

Zack had blinked at him, stared at him, and then smiled tentatively. "Asperger's."

David had nodded. "My sister's autistic. Do you have any siblings?"

And that was all it had taken. He had joined David and Elizabeth and Jimmy at their table, had slowly slipped into their conversation. Elizabeth was in the military to pay for law school—she wanted to be a prosecutor. Jimmy was only eighteen—he'd just graduated high school, and had needed to find someway to support his family. And David, well, David was in the military because his entire family had been in the military.

It had been bright, almost happy. Suddenly, Iraq wasn't quite the scary ocean of sand and blood it had seemed. He had people who could kind of catch his drift. Jimmy was brilliant, smart enough to follow Zack's thoughts. Elizabeth shared his dry, sarcastic gallows humour.

And David, well, David shared his bed.

It wasn't love. Zack wasn't stupid enough to think that. He'd known for most of his life that he was bisexual, though he preferred women, and it was clear that David did, too. It was sex, pure and simple. And that made it all okay. Sex is, after all, an anthropological necessity, especially in a situation like war. So David-and-Zack was merely a fucking out of the demons, a celebration of life, a mourning of loss.

And then, one day, David was in his lab.

A roadside bomb had exploded, taking out a tank. None of the bodies could be identified. This was the reason that Zack was in Iraq. He had gathered the body parts, and then brought them to the lab. There, he sought to sort them into the three people they were supposed to be.

Two women, one man. One woman was tall and thin. The other was short and built like a boxer. The man was tall and strong. One woman was African-American. The other was Caucasian. The man was Caucasian, too. One woman had braces. The other had three crowns and perfectly straight teeth. The man had no wisdom teeth—they'd been removed.

One woman was Cassidy Kline.

The other was Andreinna "Andy" DuLacacus.

The man was David Rendinzi.

It was the only time Zack had ever thrown up because of a body. Even the bodies of the Iraqi children—brought in to his lab in tiny little pieces, brought into his lab full of holes, brought into his lab without heads or arms or hands or feet or legs or childhoods—weren't like this. Elizabeth found him in the morgue, on the floor, sobbing.

She hadn't said anything. She'd just wrapped her arms around him and cried into his shoulder. Later, they'd found Jimmy. They'd all climbed out on top of David's favourite dune to watch the sun sink under the sand, tears blurring the red and gold and bronze from their vision.

But that wasn't the end of his suffering. Forensic anthropologist or no, Zack was still in a war zone. And war stops for nothing, be it heartbreak or death.

When Zack wakes up the first time, he's halfway between Iraq and Germany. Elizabeth is next to him (or so he thinks), along with a pair of medics and an array of medical equipment. Blood is hot and sticky on his skin, and something burns like acid. He wants to scream, but something is forcing air into his lungs and he can't control it.

In a hot haze of pain, he passes out again.

The next time he opens his eyes, there's a tall, dark-skinned man hovering above him. Noticing his open eyes, the man smiles.

"Glad to see you're with us, Doctor," he says, voice deep and rumbling, with a thick German accent. "Please remain calm. You're in Berlin. You were evacuated as a medical emergency."

Zack fades out to the sound of hissing gasses and beeping machines, a bright light the last thing he sees.

The third time, he hears things before he sees anything. He swears he must be hallucinating, because it sounds like his mother is talking to Dr Brennan. And that's impossible, because he's in Iraq—no, no, Berlin, the man said Berlin—and Dr Brennan is in Washington DC, and she hates this war as much as he does, but his mother hates it more and she's in…she's in Durham, visiting his niece Lisa.

But it really does sound like Dr Brennan. And that sounds like Hodgins, which means that that burbling laugh is Angela being Angela. And his mother is definitely talking to someone…it sounds like his brother Joshua. And then Dr Brennan is talking again. This can't be. It's impossible.

He's not going to argue, though. It's warm, and comforting. He likes warm and comforting.

And now there's something warm and comforting worming through his veins.

He sleeps.

"The doctor said he should wake up soon," Dream-Angela says. "They took him off the narcotics."

"Won't he be in pain?" Hallucination-Mama asks. She sounds worried. Dreamy-Floaty-Zack wants to comfort her, but the clouds holding him down won't let him move.

"He'll be fine," Dream-Dr-Brennan says after a short pause. "They've still got the epidural in place, so he won't be feeling any pain from the amputation."

"But…the others…" Hallucination-Joshua says tentatively.

"They shouldn't be bad," Hallucination-Angela promises. "The most painful part is over—that's why they're waking him up."

Dreamy-Floaty-Zack struggles against the gravity holding his eyes closed. "M'ma?" he slurs weakly. "J'sh'a?"

"We're here, baby," his mother—because she's definitely real, not a dream—says warmly, happily, tangling warm fingers with his. "How are you, sweetie?"

"Stoned," he manages. "D'r Brenn'n here? 'N' Ang'a?"

"We're here, Zackaroni," Angela laughs. "And Dr Sayoran is around, somewhere. She's not used to her coworkers looking like her stiffs, I think."

"Why?" Zack asks slowly, breathing deeply. Breathing is hard. Good thing the oxygen mix he's getting—because that's got to be the mask over his face—is fairly high. "Why…here?"

"Because you got hurt, dude," Hodgins answers. There's the snap of him closing the door behind him. "Can you see, like, at all?"

"No…" Zack sighs.

"That'd be the drugs," Dr Brennan answers quickly. She sounds vaguely uncomfortable. "You are seeing, Zack, don't worry. The drugs are just slowing down the messages. It should clear up as the narcotics flush from your system."

"In the meantime," Joshua snorts, "you'll be stoned to all hell."

"What…hap'n'd?" Zack asks, feeling his brain moving a little more quickly.

"There…there was a bomb," his mother says slowly. "They bombed your lab, Zack."

Her hand is warm on his forehead. He's quite cold. He doesn't mind.

"You were quite injured," Dr Brennan says. "Fractured ribs one through six, punctured—and collapsed—a lung, crushed your pelvis—"

"How much?" Zack demands. "What parts?"

Dr Brennan takes a deep breath. "Pubic tubercle, iliac fossa, ischial tuberosity, superior and inferior pubic ramus, and part of the sacrum. You've got a mountain of metal holding your hips in place right now. Some of it will come out, part of it will stay."

Zack winces. "Anything more?"

Dr Brennan sighs. She takes another deep breath, and then sighs again. "Yes. A large piece of rubble landed on your lower body and…"

"How bad?" Zack asks, eyes squeezed shut, knowing where this is headed.

"Your left tibia is repairable. Your right femur is pinned and grafted. Your left femur will heal, given time. Your right fibula was a mess…and I'm not going to even mention what little was left of your right tibia."

"I…I'll never walk again," Zack murmurs, mentally cataloguing the damage. "My god, I'll never walk again."

"You don't know that," his mother argues. "The doctors say that there's a chance—"

"Mama," Zack says plainly, tiredly, bone-wearily, "I know what things like that _do_ to the human body. I will _not_ be able to walk again. At least, not without putting more effort into it than is economical."

"Well, with a prosthetic…" Joshua starts.

"Amputation below the knee?" Zack asks, firing the question to anyone who can answer it.

"Yes," Angela answers.

"Degree of destruction between knee and hip?"

"Severe," Hodgins answers. "Bones were crushed, muscles were sheared, tendons and ligaments—well, let's not go there."

"Spinal damage?"

"Some, due to trauma to the sacrum and lumbar vertebrae. You're on an epidural right now, so we're not sure how much, exactly…" Angela says quickly.

Zack nods lightly, careful not to shake his swirling head. "I'm not going to be able to walk, I can tell you that right now."

"Whatever you say, love," his mother sighs. Leaning in, she kisses him on the forehead. "At least you still have your hands, no? That lab _is_ ADA compliant, isn't it?"

This last question is clearly for Dr Saroyan, who has just entered the room.

"Of course it is," she answers, not missing a beat. "And I can't say the same for Iraq. So I _know_ I will be getting my forensic anthropologist back just as soon as the doctors clear him for work and he feels up to it."

"Of course, Dr Saroyan." Zack closes his eyes as he speaks. When he opens them again, everyone is watching him carefully. He smiles. (It looks fake, feels fake, is fake.) "So. Did anything happen that I missed?"

Everyone chimes in loudly, trying to tell him everything that has happened since he left for Iraq. Most of it he's heard in letters and emails and even a few webcam conversations, but some of it is news to him. He lets it wash over him, a spill of fervent emotion and false joys, feeling amazingly like he's being brought home with each and every word.

He doesn't mind.

Eventually, though, pain and injury overcome him. Zack falls first into a light doze, and then into a deep, calm sleep.

The next morning, the sun rises once again. This time, Zack is conscious to its glory. He watches it stretch golden fingers over Berlin's busy streets, lighting up a billboard selling Coca-Cola like one of the light-tables at the lab.

It feels like coming home.

_And though the sun may set,  
I still remember,  
Those words you often spoke,  
'Every day,  
The sun also rises.'_


End file.
